The Economic Collapse

Here we go again.  When the housing market crashed in 2008 and 2009, large numbers of U.S. homeowners ended up owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth.  When the Federal Reserve started to aggressively hike interest rates earlier this year, I warned that it would happen again, and now that day has officially arrived.  During the third quarter alone, U.S. homeowners lost an all-time record 1.3 trillion dollars in equity as home values plummeted, and a new analysis conducted by Black Knight has found that approximately 450,000 of those homeowners are now underwater on their mortgages… (Read More...)

For the first time in decades, the cost of food has become a major issue in America.  If rapidly rising food prices are not a problem for you, then you should be very thankful, because most of the country is really hurting right now.  The cost of food has been going up much faster than our paychecks have throughout 2022, and this week Walmart CEO Doug McMillion publicly admitted that double-digit price increases for packaged foods “are going to be with us for a while”.  This is a crisis that isn’t going away, and as you will see below, it appears that things will get even worse in 2023. (Read More...)

Will 2022 go down in history as one of the most important economic turning points that we have ever seen?  All over the planet, economic activity is beginning to decelerate and uncertainty about the future is in the air.  Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to escalate and a very painful energy crisis has begun.  Unless there is some sort of an economic miracle, it appears that 2023 will be a very difficult year, and the long-term outlook beyond next year is even more ominous.  Suddenly, many of the talking heads on television are openly speculating about the hard times that are coming, and the word “recession” is being thrown around quite frequently. (Read More...)

If you thought that the collapse of FTX was something, just wait until the entire global financial system comes crashing down all around us.  Most people just assume that the system is being managed by rational people that behave in rational ways, but of course countless investors assumed the same things about FTX.  Sadly, the global financial system has slowly but surely been transformed into the largest casino in the history of the world.  It is a colossal Ponzi scheme, and once in a while authorities give us a little peek into what is really going on behind the curtain. (Read More...)

We continue to get more evidence that the U.S. economy is really slowing down.  As you will see below, the amount of stuff that we are ordering from manufacturers in China is plunging dramatically.  I have never seen a dip of this magnitude before, and I think that it is a really bad sign for 2023.  Based on all of the economic numbers that have been released in recent weeks, I anticipate that economic conditions in 2023 and beyond will be worse than anything that we have experienced since the Great Recession.  So I would encourage you to enjoy the next few weeks while you still can, because once 2023 arrives we will want to brace ourselves for an extremely harsh economic environment. (Read More...)

We knew that economic conditions were deteriorating, but this is getting ridiculous.  According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in November was 127 percent higher than it was in October.  That isn’t just a trend, that is an avalanche.  And compared to the same month in 2021, the number of layoffs in November was 417 percent higher.  Please take a moment and let that figure sink in.  A 417 percent increase is a colossal shift.  Essentially, these numbers are telling us that a giant tsunami of U.S. layoffs has now begun, and I believe that things will get even worse in 2023 and beyond.  Our leaders have pursued policies that have been extremely destructive to the U.S. economy, and many of us have been warning that a day of reckoning would arrive.  Well, it appears that a day of reckoning for America’s workers is now here, and the months ahead are not going to be pretty. (Read More...)

The road ahead certainly does not look promising.  For much of 2022, there has been a lot of debate about whether or not the U.S. economy is in a recession, is headed for a recession, or is about to turn in a positive direction.  Unfortunately, virtually all of the numbers are now telling us that economic conditions are starting to deteriorate quite rapidly as we approach the beginning of 2023, and even rabidly optimistic business leaders such as Jeff Bezos are warning us to prepare for harder times.  So now the framework for the debate over our economic future has shifted.  At this point, there are some that expect a relatively minor recession and then a recovery, and there are those such as myself that expect immense pain in the years ahead.  There are so many warning signs that indicate that the entire system is starting to crack and crumble, but a lot of the “experts” are still hoping that our leaders will find a way to turn things around somehow. (Read More...)

Are some of the cryptocurrency industry’s most important pioneers being targeted by someone?  We just learned that a 53-year-old cryptocurrency billionaire named Vyacheslav Taran has died, and he is the third big name to suddenly meet his maker in recent weeks.  So is this just one giant coincidence, or is there some common denominator that links all three of them?  There is so much that we don’t know right now, but it is interesting to note that all three of these deaths have happened at a time when the cryptocurrency community is going through an unprecedented amount of turmoil.  The collapse of FTX is threatening the legitimacy of the entire industry, and many that were once crypto millionaires on paper have had their fortunes completely wiped out. (Read More...)